GRIPS established the GRIPS SDGs Awards to promote innovative efforts by GRIPS alumni towards the solution of the most pressing environmental, social and economic challenges of our time.

At the Second GRIPS SDGs Award Ceremony, held on June 7, 2021, the award was presented to Dr. Anwar Sanusi, Secretary General of the Ministry of Manpower, Republic of Indonesia. During the ceremony Dr. Sanusi gave a presentation on his winning project.

The GRIPS SDGs Award can be a beacon for global society  -Message from Mr. Tetsuo Kondo, Director of UNDP Representation Office in Tokyo-

The award ceremony began with an opening address by GRIPS President Akihiko Tanaka.

Mr. Tetsuo Kondo, Director of UNDP Representation Office in Tokyo followed with his message for the event. Mr. Kondo has been contributing to the dissemination of information about, and the gathering of support for, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Japanese community since the adoption of Agenda 2030 and SDGs.

Mr. Kondo said that we have only nine years left until 2030, the target year for achieving the SDGs, so we must act quickly with ambitious policy moves and social production measures to achieve the SDGs. In this pressing situation, the GRIPS SDGs Award can serve as a beacon for global society. At the end of his message, Mr. Kondo urged that we think how this award can demonstrate the power of science to shape the human future. He went on to say that he looks forward to continuing the work to encourage the application of education, research, and management wisdom to the achievement of global sustainable development.

“Leave No One Behind” in the SDGs: The Obligation of the State -Presentation on the winning project by Dr. Anwar Sanusi-

Dr. Anwar Sanusi, Secretary General of the Ministry of Manpower, Republic of Indonesia, completed his Ph.D. at GRIPS in 2007 as a Japanese Government Scholarship Student.

In his presentation, he spoke about the concrete measures taken by the winning project, Localizing the 2030 SDGs by Accelerating Rural Development, from May 2015 to August 2020, while he was Secretary General of the Ministry of Villages, Disadvantaged Regions, and Transmigration. That ministry has been working to support the realization of President Joko Widodo’s vision of developing Indonesia from the periphery, through the strengthening of the regions and villages.

Dr. Sanusi said that the SDGs principle of “Leave No One Behind” refers to the obligation of the state to ensure that not one citizen be left behind, forgotten or marginalized from their rights in the course of development. In this project, various efforts were made to disseminate the SDGs at the national level in Indonesia, especially localized to the village level. He went on to explain in detail a survey that was conducted in 2020 to investigate those efforts, and present the results. Furthermore, he emphasized that new data are being collected to support decisions about matters such as future budget allocations, and that efforts to achieve the SDGs in the COVID-19 era are progressing despite the impact of the pandemic on Indonesia.
Following Dr. Sanusi’s presentation, his former advisor, GRIPS Professor Emeritus Tatsuo Oyama, gave remarks, and four GRIPS students asked questions, leading to an active exchange of ideas.

The second GRIPS SDGs Award Ceremony was a resounding success, with more than 170 people participating.
The GRIPS SDGs Award Committee will soon begin accepting applications for the third GRIPS SDGs Award. We are hoping to receive many applications from GRIPS alumni, since this event will be an opportunity to further disseminate GRIPS alumni’s activities and efforts towards the achievement of the SDGs.
The call for applications will be announced soon on the GRIPS website.

→Entries of this award are now open. The deadline is December 17. For further details, please check here.